2012. Chipper Jones says goodbye to the game of Baseball. I admit, it will be weird to watch Braves games and not have him in the lineup. If only the Braves were an American League team and he could still hit for a few more years…

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Bobby Thomson of the Milwaukee Braves is tagged out at homeplate by Brooklyn Dodgers’ Catcher Roy Campanella. Such a great action shot. I’m going to go ahead and assume that Thompson would have had a better chance at avoiding the tag if he slid into homeplate.

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1975. A young Stanley Burrell (aka. MC Hammer) poses during his time as a bat-boy of the Oakland Athletics. In fact, Hammer got his nickname from A’s star Reggie Jackson due to his striking resemblance to a young Hank Aaron.

An interesting story that goes along with this is that A’s owner Charlie Finley gave young Hammer the additional title of “Executive Vice President” (Photo Here) during his time as bat-boy with the A’s due to him taking on so much responsibility and often being the middleman between players and upper management. Hammer’s impressive tenure with the A’s lasted from 1971 and into the early 1980’s.

But hold on, his connection to the A’s goes even deeper: Hammer also grew up in Oakland rooting for the A’s as a childhood friend of Rickey Henderson. Add this to the fact that he still has a good working relationship with the A’s, where he often makes public appearances representing the organization, throwing out first pitches, and whatnot. If you ask me, his connection to the Oakland A’s and the game of Baseball is quite interesting and impressive.